Serious invert dilemma: please advise!

OK. Where to begin... about 3 months ago I notived a good portion of my dwarf ceriths die within 24 hours, within a couple days both my brittles, one of my two cleaner shrimp, my porcelain crab, and a giant feather duster all died. Well I monitored my tank's parameters since then, got my water quality better than it's ever been since I started the tank (nitrates are now 10 ppm). All other parameters are normal. PH CA ALK are all good.

OK.
So I just placed an order from vivid aquariums last week for some inverts, wanted to check my work. I got dwarf and giant feather dusters, a brittle, a blue lincka, a sally lightfoot, fighting conch, and three mexican turbos. Only things left alive are the dwarf duster, the conch, and the turbos. I added them to the tank Thursday. They were all drip acclimated very slowly. The linckia was acclimated for four hours chainging the salinity from 1.021 to my 1.025 by .001 per hour.

My original Cleaner shrimp is still doing very well, he jumps on my hand every time i put it in the tank.

Things I think may attribute to this are stray voltage, and PH swings (I just ordered a grounding probe). PH changes slightly when I top off because I use RO/DI and I have noticed that if I don't stay on top of my ESV B-Ionic when I manually top off then it lowers my PH a little, lowest I ever saw it was 7.8. I topped off and dosed b ionic the morning before adding the critters. Anything else I should look for??

 

Have you/can you test for copper? Do you have/had anything in the tank that could leach copper? Just a thought...

TJ

 

This just screams copper to me. Test for it. Update thread

Maybe SG swings.

I recommend to everyone to not get a Linkia. It is very rare to find someone that has one for any real length of time.

 

There is no copper according to my seachem copper test kit. This is really starting to piss me off the more I think about it. Makes me want to tear down my tank and start over. I thought I was on the down slope.

 

well dont feel bad about the linkia they dont live for very long for most people due to their feeding habits. what size tank? and what else is in the tank? IF you think its stray voltage try to figure out realeasing it.

 

I know you say you have ordered a ground probe but have you tested for voltage yet.

 

Don't blame the Linkia. It's due to it being put into an environment it can't sustain itself in. These things should be discovered before the purchase.

 

Um, yes, feel bad for the linckia. It's like getting a tang, not knowing that it eats algae, and never trying to feed it.

 

I didn't blame the linckia, and I don't think he did either, he was just stating a fact. However, I do feel bad for the linckia of course, as any fish-keeper should when they lose a pet, BUT I followed all recommendations I found after researching them and still, it died in 5 days.

 

My tank and live rock will have been going for a year on september 27th and I have a very significant amount of sponge growth.